The first book is mainly safe-for-reading by innocent souls, but there is a horrifying vision at the end, with Voldemort physically inhabiting Quirrell as a parasite - his face protrudes from the back of Quirrell's skull..

The video game version is even worse. Here, Quirrell twists his head around so Voldemort is facing Harry directly.

Harry's in the library late at night and opens a book. It SCREAMS AT HIM!!!

"Screams at him" really doesn't do this justice. It's more like a disembodied head is trying to escape from the book, wide-mouth yelling the entire time. And, if unintentionally, it serves to foreshadow another situation where Harry encounters another face that's somewhere that isn't supposed to have a face.

Quirrell feeding off the dead unicorn in the forest. When he notices Harry and Draco, he growls.

Quirrell slithering towards Harry and Draco, looking like a cross between a Dementor and Darth Sidious.

The three-headed Cerberus acting as the first line of defense for the Philosopher's/Sorceror's Stone is pretty terrifying, even though it's a good-aligned character.

Quirrell being burned alive from Harry's touch. His reaction at the flesh on his hand melting was bad enough, but then there is his scream of agony when Harry uses his newfound power on the guy's face.

There's also the genuine Adult Fear that is the premise of the book: Harry's parents know that the most deadly wizard of their time is hunting their infant. Even though they do everything they can, they can't stay alive to protect him. And instead of being raised in a loving household, he's given to family, who neglects/abuses him.

This is justified later in the series as the Dursley family was the only place where he would be 100% safe from Voldemort or his followers, as Petunia was Lily's last living relative. Harry's Childhood may not have been nice at all but at least he wasn't killed and he was pretty much normal, raised far away from all the fame.

"Let's match the power of Lord Voldemort, heir of Salazar Slytherin, against the famous Harry Potter."

Hagrid, an 8.5 feet (2.6 m) tall half-giant who considers vicious and violent three-headed dogs that look like they were cast out of Hades "cute", is absolutelyhorrifiedat the mention of Azkaban. It's not made clear by this book what's so frightening about Azkaban.

Slytherin's gigantic stone face was moving... something was stirring inside the statue's mouth. Something was slithering up from its depths... Harry could almost see the giant serpent uncoiling itself from Slytherin's mouth... He heard Riddle's hissing voice: "Kill him."...

An eleven-year old girl's possessed and writing in blood on the walls. The walls which mysteriously hiss at the protagonist. Hisses and moans about it being time to kill and eat. What's not freaky about that?

"Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever." Pleasant dreams.

Even after the revelations of its true function in later books, Tom Riddle's diary is still deeply disturbing. Something about the fact that all the things the diary did were never really dissected and logically analyzed in-series made it all the more sickly dark, the same way that the simplistic, matter-of-fact way that dark things in children's stories and fairy tales are introduced are much more disturbing than deeply analyzed dark aspects of and occurrences in adult literature. The vagueness and mystery of the off-screen horrors combined with things that are perfectly logical, but not all neatly tied up with an explanation - like the way the diary writes back, the ink gushing out of it, the effects it had on Harry, and the things Ginny wrote in it, and, most of all, the diary's total nondescript innocence and lack of physical threats, all have a creeping Grimm's Fairy Tales type of muted horror about it.

To make matters worse, the whole Ginny story in Book Two is quite reminiscent of real-life stories of girls meeting mysterious boys online and what they often turn out to be.

The basilisk is a giant snake. In a school. Filled with children. When you look at the basilisk, you're either petrified or dead.

Not helping matters is the fact that some of the early examples of students getting petrified, seemed like they were lucky to have it turn out that way (like seeing it through the camera / Nearly-Headless Nick). As horrifying as being petrified is, at least it's curable; some of the students came dangerously close to dying.

It's even worse if you think about this: 50 years ago all that happened as well with one girl Moaning Myrtle ending up dead. Obviously every stone they could find was turned and even Dumbledore, the most powerful wizard of the time, and Slughorn, who possessed a deep knowledge of dark magic, and all the other teachers never seemed to have the slightest idea where to search or even what they where hunting. This time it was all the same, and if Harry could not understand snakes, most likely no one would ever have found the Chamber of Secrets.

And there is the fact that the Basilisk was already ancient for its standards (1000 years is the average lifespan and it was older than that) and it still almost killed Harry, and it would have succeeded if not for Fawkes. Now think how things would have went if the Basilisk was in peak physical strength.

Acromantulas are scared of bailisks. If you don't think that's impressive/terrifying, then please read the entry directly below this one.

Acromantulas. As if the fact that they're giant, man-eating spiders isn't enough, they're also intelligent. And they hunt in packs. And one of them nearly kills Ron.

Aragog making it perfectly clear to Harry and Ron that their being friends of Hagrid's doesn't mean a fucking thing to him. Think about that for a moment. Here are two children who clearly know Hagrid, are friends with Hagrid, are trying to help Hagrid stay out of Azkaban and he's just given them information that will help prove Hagrid's innocence, and he does not give a shit. He'll let his children kill and eat them, and you also get the clear impression that he won't even conceal that fact from Hagrid. He regards Hagrid as a friend, but beyond that anyone else is just a meal.

Aragog: Go...? I think not. My sons and daughters do not harm Hagrid, on my command. But I cannot deny them fresh meat when it wanders so willingly into our midst. Farewell...friend of Hagrid.

Terrible and lethal though the basilisk is, there's something about it having both eyes pecked out that's disquieting.

Ron's warning to Harry when he first picks up Riddle's diary that picking up and opening a strange book in the Potterverse can curse you for life.

Ron: Anyone who read Sonnets of a Sorceror had to speak in limericks for the rest of their life!

Lockhart was totally willing to erase Ron and Harry's memories, leave Ginny in the Chamber without even attempting to rescue her, and pass himself off as a hero, despite the basilisk still being alive and able to kill students. This man is a teacher. The students are meant to trust him and rely on him for protection.

In the movie, when Lucius Malfoy lifts his wand and whispers "Ava—" before Dobby stops him. Damn Malfoy! Is it worth a lifetime on Azkaban for losing a single house elf!? That kind of makes you wonder what he is like to his son.

(Actually, Jason Isaacs ad-libbed the line — he only read the fourth book,he was instructed to tell a random spell.)

Boggarts. Creatures that can exist without any true form is pretty unnerving, but the fact that they can take the shape of the thing a person fears most, which can change on the person's mindset, and inhabit any given corner of the globe is pretty damn terrifying. The Giant Spider form of the Boggart in the movie is a good example. See for◊yourself◊.

When Parvati Patil is faced with a giant snake Boggart in the film, she responds by turning it into an infinitely more terrifying Jack-In-The-Box, that bobs back and forth and, upon going forth, looks as though it's trying to grab you. Keep in mind, this was made from a spell that's essentially weaponized Nightmare Retardant. Who on Earth thought that would be funny!?

Maybe Parvati did. "Scary" and "funny" are subjective, right? Maybe the clowns that the rest of humanity think are the scariest freaking thing in existence are actually hilarious to Parvati. Which makes one wonder about her a bit...

Lupin: You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working. But you'll have no sense of self anymore, no memory, no...anything. There's no chance at all of recovery. You'll just — exist. As an empty shell. And your soul is gone forever...lost.

The GBA game of the same game has a rendition of the theme that has been catapulted onto many "most disturbing video game music" lists. Hearing it may help you to understand why.

Let's take it a bit further, shall we? Deathly Hallows implies that there's some kind of Afterlife in the Potterverse, which you can only enter if your soul is whole and undamaged. But Lupin states that when Dementors Kiss you they suck away your soul and presumably eat it or destroy it somehow, and then your soul is "gone forever... lost". Which begs the question: how can you enter the Afterlife if your soul's gone? You probably can't, and once you finally die you'll simply stop existing altogether. Not only that: the Ministry of Magic can sentence someone to the Dementor's Kiss; which means that not only they basically kill you in this life, they also take away your right to enter the eternal Afterlife. Talk about harsh punishments.

The books' description of the Dementors is horrifying enough but the third movie took it to a darker places when the viewers are treated to a close-up of one of their faces as it attacks Harry during a Quidditch game.

And Pottermore makes it even worse with the revelation that the Dementors are not the scariest thing in Azkaban, and refusing to elaborate beyond stating that the Ministry was too scared of the fortress itself to destroy it and the building. I repeat: unkillable soul-stealing wraiths are not the scariest thing in Azkaban, and even that pales to the building itself.

Want even more? In the book, Lupin states that if you suffer a Dementor's presence long enough, you may eventually become one... Sure, he may have been speaking metaphorically, but heavens.

Dementors can clearly be bargained with, based on their detailed agreements with the Ministry, and yet we never hear one speak onscreen. Their means of communication, therefore, goes straight into Nothing Is Scarier.

Wormtail betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort, even though they were his best friends. When his remaining friend, Sirius, chased him down after James and Lily's deaths, Wormtail cast a spell to cause an explosion that killed a dozen innocent people. Pinning his mass murder on Sirius and ensuring Sirius's twelve-year psychological torture in prison, Wormtail escaped. Worse, he escaped by turning into a rat and got himself adopted as the Weasleys' pet. For twelve years, the Weasley family was unwittingly sharing their home with a murderer.

And a traitor.

And the man who would bring about the resurrection of Voldemort.

The fact they were in Harry's dormitory for three years. If they had heard of Voldemort recovering...

Remus' transformation, in both the book and the movie. It's both the way it's clear that becoming a werewolf is painful, and that he's trying to not become a monster, as his sanity goes and his pained whimpers slowly change to growls as the wolf takes over and... yeah.

While you find out at the end of the movie that he's a good guy, seeing the Grim before you know it is pretty scary. Especially when he turns up in the beginning, when Harry's alone and he looks ready to attack.

Before The Reveal, the idea of Sirius Black himself was pretty terrifying. Voldemort's most faithful servant unhinged by his death, escaping from prison solely for revenge on Harry? All the fear of a mass murderer who's out to get you, with added magical powers that the wizards themselves couldn't figure out. Not only was he seemingly unaffected by the dementors, not only did he escape from Azkaban, but he broke into Hogwarts in a way Voldemort had not (at the time) managed to. Twice.

The trance Trelawney goes into, when she speaks her second real prophecy, is rather creepily described.

When Ron was taken away by the Grim. Sure, Sirius Black was a good guy, so they weren't in any real danger, but try thinking about it from the kids point of view: they're out after hours without permission; so no one (except Hagrid, but he's not exactly in good shape at the moment) knows where they are, and they get attacked by what is essentially the wizarding world's form of the Grim Reaper. The Grim jumps on Harry and knocks him down. He tries to bite Harry, but bites Ron's arm instead; cause he pushed Harry out of the way. Then the Grim runs off with Ron despite their best attempts to stop it and disappears into the Whomping Willow, which leads to the Shrieking Shack.

From Harry's point of view, he seems to be the dog's target. Then Ron pushes him out of the way and it bit his arm instead. Even though he's hitting with all he's got, the Dog's dragging his best friend away into unknown territory, preparing to do who-knows-what with him (main thoughts were probably visualising how badly Ron was mauled, or the dog killing Ron). And he can't run to get the teachers cause it might have killed Ron by the time they found him. Kid was probably terrified for his friend, feeling guilty for being unable to stop it, as well as out of control of the situation (helplessness).

From Ron's point of view, it's worse. Basically, no matter how hard he struggles or hits the dog, it's dragging him towards unknown territory. He hooks his foot in a tree root stop it and gets his leg broken for his troubles. Then he finds out that the Grim (which he believes is the Grim Reaper), turns out to actually be Sirius Black's animagus form, and he has Ron's wand. Keep in mind that Ron currently believes him to be an axe crazy serial killer who's probably ready to kill him at any moment, since he needs a wand in order to perform magic. This means he no longer has any defence since his wand was taken, and that he probably knows that he was bait to lure his best friend to his death. Basically, Ron's in an unknown location alone with a serial killer who could kill him at any moment with zero defence and enough pain from his broken leg and bitten arm to potentially pass out, and the only reason he's still alive is to act as bait. Sure, he turned out to be a good guy, but they obviously don't know yet. The poor guy was probably terrified out of what little mind he had left which wasn't trying to cope with a broken leg. Pretty terrifying, huh?

The film adds extra creep factor to the scene in the Shrieking Shack: accentuated by the music, Ron points to someone standing in the corner, the true form of the Grim, hiding behind the door that Harry and Hermione just walked through. In the dust covering the floor are pawprints, which the camera follows until it finds a man's shoes, then pans up to reveal that the hellhound that's been following Harry throughout the story is actually the mad murderer who they're all convinced is about to kill them: Sirius Black. The pawprints leading to a human being are downright unsettling—they create an unnatural sight even by the standards of a wizarding school.

Harry: The dog. Where is it?

Ron: Harry, it's a trap! He's the dog! He's an Animagus!

So, back to those Dementors... The climactic scene where Sirius and Harry are at the lake under attack, there are swarms of them. The book makes it scary enough, but actually seeing it in the film, the part where one attacks Harry and you can see part of his soul getting sucked out, like some sort of double-consciousness, is horrifying, along with the screams of agony. Then two and three more attack, all sucking. And just what was that small bright light leaving Sirius's mouth? If the Dementors had swallowed it, his soul might have been lost forever.

It's treated as a throwaway gag, but in order for the Quidditch World Cup to be held, it was necessary to inflict amnesia and varying amounts of mind control on dozens of people who weren't doing anything nastier than visiting/living in an out-of-the-way bit of the moors.

Anything to do with Muggles and the World Cup.

The Unforgivable Curses. They are so-called and net a lifetime sentence in Azkaban for very good reasons:

The Imperius Curse. Imagine being forced to do things like mutilate yourself and kill others with it.

To clarify, the Imperius Curse doesn't just make you do whatever the caster wants you to, it puts you in a blissful state where you feel removed from any concept of consequence or responsibility. In other words, not only will you do whatever the caster wants, you will be happy while you do it.

The Cruciatus Curse, painful enough that two of its victims were rendered insane for life!

The utter horror of the Killing Curse is just too mind-boggling to think, especially for the Muggles. Imagine, it is a spell that is cast specifically to kill. It's like shooting with a pistol, except that pistol kills because it inflicts messy biological damages, which may not always happen with fatality (though as the word says: "When you shoot, you shoot to kill"). The primary characteristic of the Killing Curse (and why it is so handy to dark wizards) is that it leaves no biological damage. Once you are hit by the green flash, you just drop dead, your internal organs being as the same before, except that they immediately stop functioning. Not even the wizards know why exactly it happens; imagine having to explain it to Muggles who have absolutely no idea why their neighbors suddenly have their life force ripped as if the beings above strip them of their right to live.

The second task of the Triwizard Tournament in the Black Lake in the film adaptation... the merpeople's design and their shockingly aggressive attitude when the Berserk Button is pressed.. Viktor Krum's transfigured shark head, the Grindylows, which, despite the fact that they were only seen from a distance or below, were extremely territorial...

"It looked as though Wormtail had flipped over a rock and revealed something ugly, slimy, and blind. Only worse, a hundred times worse. [...] A crouched human child, only Harry had never seen anything that looked less like a child. It was hairless and scaly looking, a dark, raw, reddish black. Its arms and legs were thin and feeble and its face — no child alive had ever had a face like that — flat and snakelike, with gleaming red eyes."

In the aforementioned scene, when Pettigrew chops off his hand, you can see the hand coming off.

Out of all the Nightmare Fuelish scenes in the Harry Potter series, one of the most unnerving has/had to be in "The Madness of Mr. Crouch". You have a possessed man, dragging himself through the forest — foaming at the mouth — talking to a tree one moment, then desperately clutching at Harry's robes the next, issuing a warning and saying his son's death was all his fault. All the while, Harry can do virtually nothing to help the situation, Viktor is useless, and Crouch Sr. still gets killed.

While the book and series focus on Cedric, this (and Frank Bryce) were actually the first true deaths in the series. Both minor characters, so they're sort of skated over, but upon re-reads, it's really the first warning sign that the stakes are about to get really high.

And then his corpse is transformed into a bone, and buried so it can never be found. And all this was done by his own son.

Fake!Moody reverting into Crouch Jr. and clawing at his own eye... because another eye is trying to grow in the place of the magical eye Moody had to replace his lost one.

Also, this eye itself is a little scary because it's electric blue, it can move independently from the other eye, and it can see inside Moody's head and through solid objects

And after he pulls it out, it keeps swiveling around of its own accord!

Moody was locked, bound and gagged, in his own trunk for ten months. Anyone who fears And I Must Scream will shudder at that thought.

Three words: "Kill the spare". Cedric Diggory, a 17-year-old popular Hogwarts student who participates in a tournament that can finally raise his house's prestige with a successful Quidditch career, a caring father, and a loving girlfriend, with a compassion to his fellow compatriot on the tournament even if it reduces his prestige and goes out his way to help him, killed because he happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. From this point onward, it begs no question of why Harry acts paranoid at all times and desperately wants no one to associate with himself; he's afraid that Cedric's fate is going to befall them. Though, it also speaks an awesome moment for his friends and Ron and Hermione in particular, who stubbornly always follow him no matter how dangerous being in that position is.

That's because, in the movies, she's voiced by a human. This isn't true in the books, where all snake language is regular snake hissing, rather what's shown in the films.

The whole scene in the book where the Death Eaters first reveal themselves at the Quidditch World Cup. Even though they don't cause any lasting harm, it's made abundantly clear that they're essentially a lynch mob with magical powers. It just gets worse when the main trio runs into Malfoy, who smugly informs the Muggle-born Hermione that they're targeting Muggles. From that point on, it was impossible to ignore the real-world subtext of this series.

Malfoy: Granger, they're after Muggles. D'you want to be showing off your knickers in midair? Because if you do, hang around...they're moving this way, and it would give us all a laugh. Harry: Hermione's a witch! Malfoy: Have it your own way, Potter. If you think they can't spot a Mudblood, stay where you are.

And let's be honest: Malfoy's "knickers" line is about fifty times more unsettling if you're over the age of thirteen. To someone who's old enough to know about the concept of sexual harassment, Malfoy comes off like he's not-so-subtly suggesting that Hermione might be raped.

Which is certainly a disturbing enough implication on its own, but the fact that Hermione is a fourteen-year-old girl just adds so much more Squick to the scene.

Oh, and it gets worse. These particular Death Eaters likely aren't strangers to Malfoy. The fathers of his two lackeys were probably in there. Hell, his own dad was probably in there.

The scene where "Moody" tortures the spider is one of the most disturbing scenes in the series when put into context. Crouch Jr. was the among the Death Eaters who tortured Neville's parents into insanity, and now he is performing the same thing on a spider in front of Neville just to torment him, under the guise of being a concerned teacher preparing the class for life.

While it's more intimidating in the film than in the book, the Death Eater riot at the Quidditch World Cup has quite a bit of terrifying imagery.

This far and no one's mentioned easily one of the darkest and most disturbing moments of the film? Though I don't blame you... but let's give a hearing for Voldemort's return. It's not just the fact that he's done something incredibly dark to return, not just the fact he killed a seventeen-year-old, whom he saw was spare weight... it's because of what this MEANS. Avada Kedavra doesn't have just ONE survivor. It has TWO. One of which is THE MOST evil and vile wizard of the past century. A monster who started a war because he wanted to rule over everything. Seeing it in the film and reading it in the book doesn't change ANYTHING about what it means... and imagine Harry seeing him not in another person's body, not as a child, but what was most likely him as he looked at the height of his powers... the same monster that killed his parents.

The Erklings in the video game version are creepy as hell. They are known to lure children away from their parents to eat them. Oh, and they also sing this eerie melody.

The fate of Bertha Jorkins: she's captured by Wormtail and brought to Voldemort, who then proceeds to torture her for information about the Quidditch World Cup and the Triwizard Tournament; even managing to break through the Memory Charm Barty Crouch Senior placed on her. Note that he doesn't specifically mention the Cruciatus Curse; he only says "with a little persuasion" - so there's no telling what methods he used to get all he needed out of her. And when he's done with her, her mind and body are both damaged beyond the repair of even magic - so, as he describes it to the Death Eaters, he 'disposes' of her like a bit of rubbish.

Even in Muggle territory, you are never safe from the wrath of the Dementors.

Montague's experience after Fred and George stuffed him into a vanishing cabinet. He spent weeks in a pitch black limbo, hearing snatches of conversation from either end, taunting him. Eventually, he managed to apparate himself out, an experience which almost caused his death.

Made worse by the fact that it turns out that the aforementioned Vanishing Cabinet is the same one used the following year by Malfoy to create a passageway into the castle for some of Voldemort's top Death Eaters.

Not to mention how casual everyone is about it. Sure, Montague must be a grade-A douche to join the Inquisitorial Squad, but trapping him in limbo for weeks just for trying to dock you some house points? That's kind of messed up.

The scene where Umbridge attempts to use the Cruciatus Curse on Harry. This is the wizarding version of Cold-Blooded Torture at its worst, only previously described as having been used by Death Eaters and Barty Crouch Sr.'s team of interrogators, and she's about to use it on a fifteen-year-old boy. The Cruciatus Curse is capable of causing insanity, and is considered so horrible, its use is punishable by a life sentence in Azkaban.

Stephen King, famed writer of such horror stories as The Shining, and creator of such memorable and terrifying villains as Annie Wilkes, called Dolores Umbridge "the greatest make-believe villain to come along since Hannibal Lecter."

Heck, the mere fact that there are people like Umbridge in real life. And many of them are teachers. Teachers whom many of the kids and teens reading these books just might have had experiences with...

On the other hand, as awful as Umbridge was, her comeuppance at the hands of the centaurs is horrific to think about, if you subscribe to the theory that they raped her. Just the idea of being gang-raped by centaurs is pretty damn disturbing.

The Department of Mysteries has a few moments:

The vat full of brains, and the time research room. Made even worse by the fact that the heroes saw it in the middle of the night, when it was unoccupied.

The room with the dais. An enormous, rectangular room with a sunken pit twenty feet below in the center, with stone steps leading down to it and an old, crumbling archway in the middle. The fact that the veil of this dais is fluttering with no one being there to move it is frightening enough; when you learn that it is actually the gateway to death and that the veil's fluttering is caused by souls of the dead who are waiting on the other side.

Especially creepy considering it's an amphitheatre-like room.

The love room in the Department of Mysteries. Out of all the many horrors in that place, the contents of this room is the one that they feel they need to keep behind a permanently locked door.

Hell, the Department of Mysteries itself. A top-secret government agency that only those with the highest security clearance are allowed in, inside which all of the creepiest and most dangerous magic is studied. Where have we seen this before?

The Battle of the Department of Mysteries speaks volumes, considering how it involves a group of four 15-year-olds and two 14-year-olds fighting for their life against the Death Eaters, and the various injuries they get are horrific by itself, but the most horror has to be what Hermione experiences. She is struck by a mysterious purple spell conjured by Dolohov, which causes her to faint and immediately crumple, showing all signs of someone being killed. Harry is actually very, very scared in his narration that she is really going to die, although it fortunately does not happen. After the battle, it is noted that Hermione has to experience a lengthy recuperation process that involves drinking a lot of potions for several weeks. Oh, didn't we mention that Dolohov is muted at that time? Nonverbal spells are not as powerful as verbal, which brings up a Fridge Horror of what would happen if he was not muted at that time. It is implied that a verbal version of this spell is what Dolohov uses to kill Lupin in the final book.

Rowling never elaborates the nature of this spell, unlike other high-end curses like the Unforgivable Curses or Sectumsempra or even Fiendfyre. What we know is that it can be negated but not deflected completely and that it inflicts some sort of internal damage as from the outside the people hit by this spell is peaceful-looking. It sounds an awful lot like a Theme Park Version of the Killing Curse, which is not much better.

Boggarts, generally all bark and no bite except for Parvati's mutant jack-in-the-box (a significantly less terrifying mummy in the book), are given a Wham Moment when Mrs. Weasley, trying to get rid of one, is forced to see the dead bodies of her family (and Harry, in a darkly heartwarming moment).Adult Fears can't be helped with the Ridikkulus spell.

The possession scene at the end of the film. Daniel Radcliffe completely sells the idea that poor Harry is being ruthlessly mind raped by Voldemort. Not to mention Harry's snake-like writhing just screams out that something thoroughly inhuman is trying to possess his mind and body.

You've lost, old man.

One of Harry's hallucinations during the possession is of him looking into the Mirror of Erised and seeing Voldemort's face in his reflection. "Look at me."

Hagrid attacking the Aurors after they gang up on Fang and Mc Gonagall. Sure it's Beware the Nice Ones, but this scene also shows just how dangerous someone who is 11'6" and weighs probably around 1000 pounds can be when you piss them off. Add in that because of his giant blood, he is immune to the Stunning Spell.

The photograph of the Original Order of the Phoenix. As Harry lampshades, so many in that photo are doomed and are unaware of their fates.

​And just think about how some of those old Order members died — some were murdered along with their entire families, some (like Ron's uncles) were outnumbered, and others were blown to bits.

Harry's dream where he sees Arthur being attacked by Nagini, with the description of his ribs shattering beneath the attack. If Harry hadn't been quick it may have been hours before Arthur was found.

On a meta level, this scene was likely where Arthur was going to die had Rowling not changed her mind. While most of the other deaths have been quick or offscreen, Rowling had obviously been prepared to not just sacrifice Arthur, but do so in an unforgettable, dramatic, gory way - with Harry watching it all in 1st person, which certainly wouldn't have been good for his already shaky mental health.

Inferi (which are more or less zombies), especially when they come out of the water; Harry slashes at them, but they have no blood to shed, and they try to drag Harry down into his grave. Especially considering the fact that Voldemort's inferi are the bodies of his victims... hundreds of innocent people with families, floating in a mass grave, forced to do their murderer's bidding... The movie only made them creepier, just by making them succeed in pulling Harry under the water.

Made ever-so-much-worse in true Rowling fashion with the knowledge that one of those corpses is Regulus Black, Sirius's kid brother.

The potion in the cave. It's freaking Dumbledore sobbing and pleading for Harry to kill him. And Harry can't do a single thing but force more and more of the potion down his throat. It's a Tear Jerker where your tears are mixed with fear.

The whole thing with how similar Harry and Tom's early childhoods were fraught with abuse, and that how Tom turned out was supposed to be his own fault. Rowling even says he chose to become a psychopath, although orphanages in the twenties and thirties weren't all that great for child development, and whether one is the product of rape is directly irrelevant to whether or not one grows up to be a psychopath.

Katie Bell touching the cursed necklace, floating up with her arms outstretched, then dropping to the ground screaming. The worst part in the movie is when we get a closeup of her face while she's being held rigid in the air. Her eyes are bulging and the angle makes her mouth look like it's open much wider than humanly possible.

That's not the only part terrifying about that scene. Even before then, when it looks like her body's getting thrown and dragged across the ground like some sort of human rag doll, it's so inhuman that it could probably give The Exorcist a run for its money.

Her friend shouting "I warned her! I warned her not to touch it!" as Katie thrashes about on the ground is pure Adult Fear.

The deleted scene where the school choir is singing that song is both beautiful AND haunting.

The fact that Muggles can feel Dementors' presence, but can't actually see them. These creatures are wandering the streets at night, preying upon victims that can't even see what their captor is.

Rowling has stated that she based Dementors on clinical depression. Taken with the above, this implies that in Potterworld, Muggles who suffer from the disorder do so because they have an invisible soul-sucking demon on them. Charming.

Apparation, when you think about it. In the books, it's merely the extremely-uncomfortable sensation of being squeezed through a narrow tube, unable to breathe, which is terrifying to those with a fear of enclosed spaces... in the films: A person's own body twisting, stretching, swirling... it's all very disturbing, especially for any unlucky freeze-frames.

The idea of Voldemort murdering people, then modifying the memories of others to believe they've committed the murders.

Fenrir Greyback is one of the nastiest villains in the series. A werewolf who enjoys it, deliberately going after people. He specialises in going after children, at one point killing a little boy, and even acts like a werewolf when it is not full moon, with cannibalistic urges. He even attacks Bill while untransformed and leaves him with permanent scars. The paedophilia and rape overtones don't help.

The Attack on the Burrow, film-only. Regardless of what you may think about it's inclusion note J.K. Rowling herself approved it, if nothing else , the scene has terrifying Adult Fear vibes: Voldemort and his followers are back in power, and are able to appear/attack anywhere. The ones attacking involve an Axe Crazy woman who tortured several into insanity, and a werewolf who has no hesitation in spreading the disease... and they're toying with you, trying to draw you away from the others - which succeeded on Harry and Ginny. Then once they have you alone, they hunt you... not just fight, but constantly apparate around to make you unsure where they are, hiding until the right moment to strike. Then at the end, just like the attack itself, they damage the Burrow for no good reason/for the fun of it. The book had vibes of this, but never was 'Nowhere is safe' so strongly showcased.

The Sectumsempra curse, particularly from the point of view of a victim. Imagine having your skin cut open without anything even touching it, to point that you could bleed to death. Even if the first victim is Draco Malfoy, you can imagine Harry's horror at seeing blood spurt from his opponent's body "as though he had been slashed with an invisible sword".

It's a very small, movie-specific moment, and it's not nearly as bad as the others listed, but Ron's reaction to the love potion is rather unsettling. The dopey look of infatuation fades away and a rather horrified expression replaces it. "What happened to me?" is followed by a quiet "I feel... really bad..." Worse is that Harry and Slughorn just laugh it off (at least his 'What happened?' question; they don't really answer the second one).

From a brain chemistry standpoint, powerful infatuation can have similar effects to drugs. What Ron might have been feeling may have been similar to crashing after coming down off a high, and he was only exposed to a small bit of the potion for a few hours. Imagine what it felt like for someone that may have been fed the potion for several months... like what was implied to have happened to Tom Riddle, Sr. AKA Voldemort's father. Almost makes you feel some sympathy for the guy. Almost.

A subtle, unnerving example in the cave, film-only. When Harry is trying to give water to Dumbledore, he quickly fills up the previously-filled-with-potion bowl with water, but he can't fill it up whatsoever due to the bowl's magic... just when Harry realizes it won't work, he goes absolutely still. He slowly looks around at the lake, the water perfectly calm, surrounding this poorly-lit island... but he has no other choice. Slowly, body language screaming that he knows something is gonna happen the moment he gets water, he inches toward the edge of the island... cue anInferiusgrabbing his hand, then all hell breaks loose.

Malfoy basically joined a terrorist cult and started a school shooting.

Nagini in general is Nightmare Fuel, especially if you're ophidiophobic.

In the movie, before we even know that Bathilda's being possessed (unless you've read the book, of course), we have Harry upstairs alone with the poor senile old woman, while Hermione looks around downstairs. While the atmosphere is a little unsettling, you don't realize "Shit shit shit GET OUT OF THERE" until Hermione stumbles on a dark room which, when lit, has the walls and ceiling covered in blood spatter.

Snape's brutal murder. Oh, how beautiful it must be tosee his neck chewed on by Nagini, and then see him writhing on the floor in pain as blood and memories leak out from him... The movie has this as a Nothing Is Scarier moment — we see it only partially through a dirty window, and only hear the sound of the snake striking at Snape again and again.

Even worse, before Snape is killed by Nagini, he has his throat cut open by Voldemort. All with a flick of his wand.

In the film, you can see the reaction of the trio, hiding outside the boathouse, as it happens. Harry hates Snape at this point, and even he's horrified as he listens to Nagini attacking him.

The Ministry rounding up Muggle-borns, even the children. And it's implied that a lot of them (yes, even kids) are given to the Dementors....

Fenrir Greyback's remarks about Hermione, and all of the torture scenes, despite not being graphic, are very creepy too. It's even worse in the movie. We get to see Bellatrix pinning Hermione to the ground, interrogating her while Hermione screams. Doesn't sound much more creepy than the book, right? Except then Bellatrix carves the word "Mudblood" into Hermione's arm.

The magical eye mounted on Umbridge's door, which used to belong to Mad-Eye Moody.

Umbridge during the interrogation of the Muggle-borns. Just remember that her Patronus-fueling happy thought is sending people to their deaths. She wore a horcrux in her neck, a part of Voldemort's soul and she had no trouble making a Patronus, in the presence of Dementors. Even scarier is that Umbridge was never a follower of Voldemort. She's always been loyal to the Minister of Magic, whomever that may be — unfortunately, the current Minister of Magic is under the effect of an Imperius Curse from Voldemort. Umbridge takes advantage of the situation. She already was an incorrigible sadist before Voldemort took over, after all...

It's actually even worse. Her Patronus-fueling happy thought isn't sending people to their deaths. It's sending people to Dementors.

The "Dumbledore corpse" that appears to anyone who enters the Black family home.

Then there's Dumbledore's sister: a six-year-old is playing happily in her garden, exploring her magic powers. Then a group of older boys appear. They do... something... to her, which causes her to suppress her magical powers and drives her insane.

They didn't just drive her mad, they made her an Obscurial. Desperate and afraid she shunned and repressed her own magic, and without control her magic darkened and twisted into its own parasitic entity. Normally she was such a sweet little girl, but if she got too scared or angry or sad... good bye Mother.

Voldemort kills the wandmaker Gregorovitch, described as having a similar appearance to Father Christmas. Voldemort murdered Santa Claus.

Voldemort arrives at a Muggle house looking for Gregorovitch. The way it's described with the happy mother opening the door, her laughing children in the background, then seeing him and begging for her life and trying to protect her children... he kills an entire family just because he went to the wrong house.

Voldemort pursuing the heroes in mid air without a broom, flying like a bat out of hell.

The scene where the trio are visiting Luna's house and go into her room... and realize that she hasn't been there for quite some time. It's worse when Harry begins to calmly punch holes through her dad's excuses. Something is terribly wrong here. Later, it's revealed that Luna's a-okay.

The prologue, when Voldemort murders the Muggle Studies teacher. The whole reason he targeted her to begin with: For daring to suggest that Muggles should be tolerated and peacefully coexisted with. Knowing all the poor woman wanted was peace makes watching her die, while tearfully begging for Snape's help all the more heartrending for the viewer/reader and Snape. But it's what he says afterwards that is the true Nightmare Fuel:

Consider that a human-sized meal would take a long time for a snake to ingest. Also bear in mind that if Voldemort had other matters to discuss it would have been well within character for him to just keep talking.

It doesn't have to be anything subtly horrifying at all - just the statue's presence is dreadful. Especially for Muggleborns like Hermione, who can only stare and is unable to do much (at that moment) in protest of it.

The scene with the locket Horcrux trying to turn Ron against Harry in a last ditch effort to defend itself. Harry says "Open" in Parseltongue in order to get the locket open, and Ron is ready to stab it with the Sword of Gryffindor, but ghastly spectres of Harry and Hermione emerge from the locket, only to tell Ron that he's worthless compared to Harry, and that Hermione will never choose him. Then the spectres of Harry and Hermione start kissing, showing Ron his worst fear.

In the film, in addition to all that, when the locket opens a swirling cloud of darknessexplodesout of the locket with enough force to knock the boys off their feet. Swirling, talking, constantly having things thrusting out of it then disappearing before you can seem them properly, all while a high-pitched whirling is playing; the thing was freaky as hell. Also scary Emma Watson's and Daniel Radcliffe's perfect delivery of the lines mocking Ron, and Rupert Grint's pained and horrified face as he looks to the two of them making out half naked.

What happens to Lavender: She's mauled by Greyback and he starts to feed upon her from her throat. In the books, her fate is unknown, but she dies in the film. Word of God stated that she later dies of her wounds in the book canon too

Voldemort's death is... very graphic. He starts dissolving into paper like shreds, with a truly horrifying, despair-filled look on his face.

Not long before this, when Harry pulls a Taking You with Me on Voldemort, the violent and frightening way the two of them fly/fall through Hogwarts while Apparating is only made more disturbing when the two of them briefly fuseintooneimage.

And the fact they were groaning, grunting andscreaming throughout that whole fight. You could only start breathing again after they separated.

In the film, Voldemort's ultimatum to the school is accompanied by a chorus of inhuman shrieks, which is revealed to actually be coming from students. Apparently, whatever spell he was using had a side effect of mind raping random people.

The scene where Harry uses the Cruciatus Curse on Amycus Carrow can be very disturbing.

Perhaps serving also as a dark Call Back or a parallel to a more funny scene, where the other resident Ravenclaw ghost does the exact same thing to Ron six movies back, while interestingly, Harry and Ron are asking Myrtle about a Horcrux (though not knowing what a Horcrux is at the time, of course). Also more alarming considering her more serene portrayal in earlier films (and book, but let's not get into that...).

The dragon in the Gringotts underground was taught by the goblins to associate the sound of clanking metal with the pain of being stabbed with a red-hot sword. It flinches AND whimpers whenever it hears the sound. Poor thing...

The dragon itself is a pretty shockingly realistic depiction of animal abuse.

Finding out you're a living Horcrux, and have had a part of one of the most foul evildoers of the age attached to you. *shudders* Talk about getting a massive case of the heebeejeebees.

The fact that after so many innocent children were probably subjected to the Dementor's Kiss and will thus cease to exist upon their deaths anyone in the Wizarding world, especially the relatives of those who had that happen to them, could ever be remotely happy again really says something about the sorry state of this secret society itself.

Bellatrix torturing Hermione. She carves "mudblood" into her wrist. It's as much disturbing as it is devastating to watch, with Hermione's horrifying screaming and Ron and Harry being in the cellar unable to do anything.

In the final battle, Aragog's family returns because the Death Eaters have driven them out of the forest. When they arrive while the battle is in full force, they attack anything that happens to be nearby, Death Eater and Hogwarts supporter alike.

"The Warlock's Hairy Heart". A wizard decides he's above the weakness of love, and performs some sort of magic to prevent him from ever loving anyone. He tries to woo a woman to be his trophy wife, but she refuses to marry him unless he shows her that he has a heart. During a feast at his castle, he takes her down to the dungeon to show here where he keeps his ACTUAL, STILL BEATING HEART encased in a crystal casket - a heart which, thanks to lack of love is now twisted and hairy beyond recognition. The witch understandably freaks out and begs him to put the heart back in, so he cuts open his chest and puts it back in. The witch then embraces him. Time for a Happy Ending with the wizard saved by The Power of Love, right? Wrong. The warlock's heart is so completely unused to feeling love that it has deteriorated to an animalistic state, driving the wizard to find a true heart. He does this by cutting out the witch's heart and trying to magic out his own. The dinner guest then find him downstairs both hearts in his hands with him licking the witch's heart.In the liner notes, Dumbledore even points out that many wizard parents won't tell it to their children "until they're in an age where they won't have nightmares".

Alternative Title(s):Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, Harry Potter And The Philosophers Stone, Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix, Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy